


Choose Your Own Adventure

by Tsarcasm (Syberina5)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Briefly Torchwood with Jack/Ianto implications, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-28
Updated: 2013-03-28
Packaged: 2017-12-06 19:42:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/739393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syberina5/pseuds/Tsarcasm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A choose your own adventure type positing of some possible last scenes of the movie.  Some crackiness may appear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choose Your Own Adventure

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is for fun, if you are going to take it seriously then you should take a hike.  
> Author’s Notes: I’ve had this in storage for a while. Wasn’t sure I was ever going to post it. Haven’t done anything with in a long time so better shared than forever dusty.

1.

Arthur squeezed Mal’s shoulder.  As she pressed her face to it, he could feel tears hit his skin.

“I’m so sorry, darling we tried,” Mal said to Cobb, sniffing delicately.  “I really thought it would work.  Maybe I was just fooling myself as much as he is.”

 “We could try it again.  Wait awhile; see what kind of life he structures for himself now that he’s allowed himself to go home to the children, if he’ll realize they aren’t really James and Phillipa.”

Eames met Arthur’s eyes worriedly.  “I don’t know that it would work.  We’d have to build a whole new team, he’s created projections of us all now.  He’s still driving his own reality.”

“I… I don’t know.  I can’t…. No, he’s worked so hard to build the world he’s in he won’t accept it.  He won’t accept that his children aren’t real.  Maybe that was where I went wrong the first time.  He would have jumped with me if I’d taken away the children.”

Arthur’s stomach dropped out.   He couldn’t imagine Mal killing her children, even in a dream.  Couldn’t imagine doing it himself.

“So that’s it.”  Arthur swallowed against the lump in his throat.  “We leave him to dream?”

“Or we could put him out of his misery,” Eames countered.

“No,” Mal nearly shouted.  “We let him dream.  Forever if necessary.  He’s still in there for God’s sake.  I’m not going to kill him.”

“Ok, ok, Mal,” Arthur said bending down to hug her as she cradled Dom’s hand against her face.  “Shh,” he soothed.  “It’s your decision.  Nobody here is going to do anything you don’t want.”  Her breathing steadied.

“Ready to make any other decisions?”  Arthur threw Eames a glare for daring to push Mal.

“What do you mean?”

“How long is Miles supposed to distract the kids?  Are you going to have them come back here and live with their father in this state indefinitely?”

“I…”

“Eames,” Arthur chastised.

“If we are going to allow him to dream how long do you think your employers are going to sit idly by while a storehouse of secrets sits around unprotected and docile?”

“This isn’t the time—”

“When is she supposed to face it?  After you go back to work and men in terrible suits show up at the door with the children in the house?  We both know the agency only gave you so long to try and fix your old boss, when is that clock up?  Huh?  When do they expect you back?”

“Two days ago.”

“Arthur,” Mal gasped.  “Why?”

“I thought it would work.  And coming back late with Cobb in one piece… .  But now, bureaucratic shit storm will ensue.  Which,” he turned to glare at Eames again, “is not something you should be worrying about right now.”

“Alright, pet, no need to bite.”

“Boys.”

“This is why Dom’s projection has us always sniping.”  Arthur wanted to voice how very sure he was that Eames likely started any sniping that went on but clearly Mal needed to come first.

“Arthur, you must go back to work.  I need someone inside to tell me what they want to do about Dom’s intel.  I can’t allow them to militarize this house or take him away.  Morgan,” she said turning to Eames and using the name he’d told her long ago his mother used for him—which was a dirty lie as far as Arthur could discover but Mal was a matron to her merry band of men—“will stay with me and help me figure out how to protect him from here, how best to bring the children home.  I…”  Mal’s eyes got a little lost again.  “I can’t imagine telling them but the idea of them growing up as their father just lies in bed… .  I need some time to figure this out.  Arthur.  I need you to buy me time.  The agency will want to move.”

“They’ll want to neutralize the threat,” Eames scoffed. 

Arthur had to glare again.  “Eames.”

“It’s true and you know it.”

“God, of course.  Poor Arthur, you just didn’t want to say it.  Oh,” and she hugged him like it was Arthur’s perfect happy life that was being ripped away.  “Arthur,” she pulled away and held his face in her hands, “do not put yourself at serious risk, I need you inside too much for you to do anything drastic.  I can’t let them kill him.  I can’t.”

“I won’t let anyone move against him.  I have a few cards I can play myself.”

“Thank you, darling,” Mal said.

“Yes, thank you, darling,” Eames snarked and Arthur was about to retort when Mal spoke.

“Morgan, I realize you are trying to cheer me up but you are just distracting him and we need him focused.”  Arthur almost added, _So there_ but stopped himself, willing to let the school yard behavior fly since perhaps it was for Mal’s benefit.

“Go Arthur,” Eames said, looking straight into his eyes.  “I’ll look after Cobb’s brood from here.”

“You better, or I’ll tell the agency just what you’ve been hiding all these years.”

“Oh, darling, go right ahead, I’ve more than enough insurance stocked up at this point, even without this little foray.”

***

2.

Mal stood there, arms clasped around herself as she watched the top she had given to Arthur to tuck into Dom’s pocket as they staged the plane weeble, skitter and fall.  She reached out for it, picked it up delicately and looked to Miles with tears on her face.

“He seems himself to me, girl,” Miles said, wrapping arms around her.

“But does he realize that this is a different reality?  Does he realize that I am alive?”

“No.  No, I don’t think he does.”  Miles tilted his head on top of hers and they both watched James and Phillipa fawn over their father.

“What will it do to his mind if I walk out there right now?”

“There’s no telling. I’m afraid but I don’t think it could send him back into a coma.  Make him question the veracity of this reality but... all we can do then is use logic to convince him this is the truth, the dream he’s woken from was the lie.”

Mal shook her head, terrified that Dom would be unable to accept his own mind’s duplicity.  She watched the children, so delighted to see their father.  She watched as they prattled on, she watched as Dom’s shoulders rose, tightened, as he looked strangely over his shoulder towards the house and she knew it had begun. 

“That’s my cue,” she said wiping her face and making her way out into the yard to see the shock and panic on her husband’s beloved face.

*

“As I’ve just survived my first round trip through limbo I’d like to survive this freeway traffic,” Eames quipped as Arthur cut around another rumbling SUV in the agency sedan that had been waiting for them.

Arthur didn’t respond, just weaved through traffic a bit more.  There was no telling how far ahead Miles and Dom were and he needed to hear Dom’s voice.  Needed to see Dom and Mal and the children all as they should be instead of fractured and broken as they had been since the whole mess had begun.

“ _Arthur_ ,” Eames hollered and he just grit his teeth harder, punching into the next gear.

*

On the door step to the house Eames wrestled him to a stop.  “Love, if you don’t breathe more than once a minute you are going to pass out in there and I think this family has had enough trauma lately, don’t you?”

Arthur tried to pace within his grasp, but Eames just gathered more of him in and pinned him down, held him steady and when Arthur couldn’t be still—even then—he reached up and kissed him.  Eames’ mouth warm and quiet over his own sent his brain off line just long enough to stop the nervous loop of _DomMalMilesChildrenDomMalMiles_ … . 

“Say something,” Eames demanded, forehead pressed to Arthur’s, body around him rather than restraining him.

“Hi.”

Eames laughed.  “Hello, darling.  Oh, Arthur,” Eames gasped before kissing him again, this time there was no quiet, no stillness, and he could feel as Arthur’s mind—rather than turning off—switched into gear reminding him just how to angle, caress, tease, and need the man kissing him.  “You ruddy genius,” Eames said with a last smack.

Arthur smiled, some of the elation he had felt when he first saw Dom open his eyes in his chair bubbling back up.  “I don’t know about genius, we all worked pretty damn hard.”  He sighed.  “Dom’s awake.”

Eames ran a hand down Arthur’s face, neck arm.  “Let’s go welcome the prodigal home, shall we?”  And pulled Arthur into the house.

*

Dom’s mind was going so fast, even he was having trouble keeping up with it, trying desperately to find holes in this world, prove it a dream.

He was afraid to touch Mal, this Mal.  And the faces of his children, after so long, were they even real?

“Son, I know this is strange for you.  But try, just for a moment, feel your body.  The muscles, how hungry you are.”

“I’m on a flight from Australia.”

“Dom.”  Mal said.  “Think of all the things that changed since the last time you saw me, me.  Not some projection.  Turn on the TV, check a newspaper.  Darling, I slipped off that ledge and I woke up next to you, sleeping.  I… we’ve been trying for so long to wake you up.”

“Dom” Arthur called and he looked up, over to see Arthur holding Eames hand and coming down out of the house, smiling in a way that only the children had ever really been able to make him.  When they reached him, out in the grass Arthur let go of Eames and hugged him.  “Man, is it good to see you awake.”

“Am I?”  Dom was less sure.  Trying to recall what Arthur and Eames’ relationship had been when he’d gone into Limbo with Mal.  “Because if this is really before than you two,” he narrowed his eyes at the way their hands had linked again, “are at each other’s throats.  If it’s not then I’m making up happy endings for everyone because I’m still in Limbo from the Fischer job.”

“So you’re concerned we’re all projections?”  Eames’ asked.  “Then I’m guessing it wouldn’t help to tell you that I’ve been shagging your protégé for the better part of a month in your guest room right under the government’s nose.  I would actually go so far as to say it was government sanctioned shagging.”

And Arthur’s not at all disgruntled face, his bemused, beaming face did more to shake Dom’s sense of self then when Mal had walked out into the sunshine.  Because he would always want her back, he would always want their family, but he would never want to hear the kind of details Eames seemed bent on sharing and Arthur would never be ok with that kind of breach of privacy.  What twisted projection would he have made of Arthur that would have him practically petting Eames as the man divulged a glut of bedroom knowledge?  And if they weren’t projections but forges or even Arthur and Eames in his dream his projections would be going haywire trying to rip them to shreds.

“I need to sit down.”  He moved to the edge of the patio and they just watched him.  Arthur’s face growing increasingly worried, turning to match Mal’s, Miles’, Eames’ face taking cues from Arthur.  He turned all the details over in his mind, looking for things to tear, to hold on to, how did he get anywhere, tracing back as much as he could, following in chains upon chains looking for the link that is too shadowy to actually be there.  “Ariadne?”

“Her name’s Colleen.  She’s agency,” Arthur provided.  “They’ve put out a pretty penny to bring you back Dom.”

“How so?”

“This wasn’t exactly the first attempt.  You and Mal were out a lot longer than you intended and we couldn’t reach you.  It wasn’t until Mal woke up and was able to tell us what had happened that we were even able to find you.  We tried.  You can’t believe how hard, but you had built up such conviction around you that we couldn’t break through.  You’d replaced so many of us with projections that it took a while to dig up people who could help bring you back that you hadn’t appropriated.”

“Which was where I came in,” Eames provided.

“Saito.”

“Yes.  Narugama.”  Arthur was obviously waiting for a fall out.

“You left Narugama alone with me in my own head?  No way.  Arthur would never.”

“Arthur would so ever.”

“Eames,” Arthur tried to step in.  “Leave it.”

“I bloody will not,” Eames railroaded over him.  “Do you know how hard it was to find remotely qualified people you didn’t know to build up a strong enough set of events so that you would buy into the credentials?  Arthur couldn’t get near you because your projection of him was so connected to you.”

“Eames.”

“Mal even tried killing him before your projection of her took over and she couldn’t get in anymore. You ungr—”

“ _Eames_.”  And there was silence while Dom’s mind whirled away.  “Goddamnit.”

“In limbo, Ariadne, we went after Fischer.  Mal…”

“Go on,” she slipped a hand onto his shoulder and the weight of it was so sweet, too familiar, a thousand times more right than any of the projections of Mal he could recall.

“She was trying to convince me her reality was real and mine was the falsehood.”

“Colleen, Ariadne, she said it was a good sign that you were conflicted about realities, that if we gave you an good enough excuse you would wake all the way up.”

Cobb sank his head into his hands, his fingers pushing into his hair, massaging his scalp and he wished they were his mother’s, that she was carding through his hair the way she had when he was a child and he fell ill.  But he hadn’t thought of his mother in years, not a happy memory at least.  Only of how she had left him, of how Mal had left him, left their children.

He turned to look at James and Phillipa playing again in the grass.  Their faces were something he had longed for and now he had them, he had Mal, he had Arthur, and Miles and—“Where’s your mother?”  He jerked up and asked Mal.

“My… ?  You loathe my mother.”

“Wasn’t she watching the children?”

“No.  They’ve visited with her but mostly they stayed with Miles in Paris, I didn’t want them to see you like that.”

“When you and Mal didn’t wake up…” Arthur stumbled. 

“Best to tell, him, love,” Eames said.

“Do you remember where James and Phillipa were when you and Mal went under?”

It took Dom a minute but then, “You.  We’d sent them on a weekend with you.”

Arthur nodded, “I came to drop them off, they ran into the house, searching for you and found the two of you, laying there, and weren’t able to wake you.”  He sighed.  “They didn’t take it well.  They were much better when Mal woke but she was trying to wake you and there was so much going on we sent them to Paris with Miles until we could figure things out.”  And Arthur waited, wearing the face that Mal had always said made him look like he was a puppy waiting to be kicked.

Dom reached up, taking Mal’s hand into his own, feeling her soft hands brush against his own.  This would have to be real.  He was choosing, as he hadn’t in limbo, to put his faith in Mal’s reality because here he had the faces of his children, he had the woman he loved.

***

3.

Miles watched Arthur and Eames pin Malana down to her bed, Eames keeping the arms down  while Arthur weaved the straps around them.  One of the nurses up on loan from the Emergency Reception slipped in between them and dosed her with a sedative. 

Miles sighed.  He’d been making such progress with her, even feeling encouraged enough to suggest to the woman’s family that a productive visit might be in the offing.  But then one of the traveling nurses had walked her past Cobb’s door on her way to dinner unraveling months of work.  Months.  Months of keeping them separated, of not mentioning one to the other, of ignoring their pleas, telling them what they were thinking wasn’t real.

One glimpse and the usually docile Malana had bloodied her hands trying to rip the door from Cobb’s room.  Cobb had given himself a black eye as it was and it had taken Miles, Arthur, Eames, and even the passing Dr. Saito to take control of the situation again.

Miles felt poorly for the way he’d screamed—most unprofessionally—at the nurse, a Ms. Baker, and had paid the piper down in HR for it.  Nevertheless she had cost him and the regular staff a great deal.

“Ah, there’s a love,” Eames said, running an affectionate hand down Mal’s arm as she stopped fighting the sedative and drifted into restfulness.  “It’s all so jumbled, dear, just take a rest and it will be easier when you try again.”

Arthur retrieved the small train figure from where Malana had dropped it in her hysteria, her conviction that this world was a dream and she needed to kill herself to return to the realm of reality, the realm where she was married and had children and lead a normal life so unlike the one in Miles’ file.  The one of a girl who had slipped into paranoid schizophrenia so quickly and so young, who’d been trying to kill herself to protect her own mind from invading forces since she was 19.  Arthur placed the train in Mal’s lax hand and gently wrapped her fingers around it, rotating her palm so that if they relaxed it would only fall on to the mattress and within the restrained reach of the patient.

Eames and Arthur had been with the ward a long time.  They, like so many of the staff, had come on a rotation, a special favor to a friend to shore up the staff, a desperate move to make more money on a tight month, and found a reason to stay.  Miles didn’t ask what Arthur’s reason was, nor Eames’—that it was quiet apparently Arthur.  It wasn’t for him to judge, only to heal.

He turned to go to the common area, try to observe some of the newer patients when he saw Jennifer Watts leading a tub of blocks with the tie from her bathrobe.  “Those aren’t to go to your room Jen.”

“My name is Ariadne.”

He ignored the name confusion—she’d been Persephone only a month ago and he was beginning to think the psychotic depression diagnosis she’d come to him with was erroneous—“The blocks stay in the great room, dear.  I’ll even help you take them back.”   He took the tie from her and gently guided her back to the common area.  “What are you going to build then?”

“Paris,” she said, “but more of the Seine.  It doesn’t look right in here though,” the girl looked about, “the light’s all wrong.”

“Maybe by that window, there.  It’s got good light this time of day.  Very Parisian.”  He watched her move there with purpose.  The comfort within whatever delusion she was in made Jennifer easier to work with than most but the frequency with which she changed them, the lack of a return to reality in between lead him to think this was a trauma induced psychosis.  But he would have to try and deduce what kind of trauma from the worlds she was creating.

Deciding on two jobs at once he helped her build Paris while observing Robert, the new edition to their little family.

As Jen pondered how to keep the Effiel Tower from falling again Dr. Saito walked over and pulled him away to consult again on Dominic Cobb’s uniquely early onset paraphrenia and a discussion they’d had on average of three times a week.

“Dr. Saito,” Miles interrupted, “I have had this man in my care since he was practically a boy.  I realize that you would like to explore his long running and expansive delusion for research purposes but our job is to bring him home to himself, not join his merry romp.”

“Sir.  Doctor.  I truly believe that by understanding his world we can find a way to show him back to reality.”

“Not by convincing him we are a part of his delusions.  I don’t want to discuss this again and never in front of other patients.”  The man was worse than Nash—he’d only lasted a couple of months in the ward, trying to sell himself on the idea of making a lucrative career in abnormal psychology.  Nash had been an abysmal placement in the fellowship program.  Yusuf was a welcome change there, even if he looked to pharmaceuticals more readily than Miles generally thought wise.

Miles excused himself from the common area and checked on Cobb on his way back to his office.  The boy had become the man between these walls and there was less and less of the reality Dom had once known, a reality of a regular life, studying in a demanding program but breaking down slowly until he’d confessed to his sister that he was learning to walk through people’s dreams.

“Am I wrong, do you think?”  He spoke as Arthur came up beside him to observe as well.

“I’m just an orderly, sir.”  Arthur returned though they both knew it was never that simple.

“And I’m just an old man.”

“If you let him and Mal come back together they would be lost again,” Arthur cleared his throat, “living in whatever world Cobb tells her is real.  She trusts him too completely.”  He fell silent again for a moment.  “To let them be together is to give up hope that we can bring them back.”  They watched as Dom folded pieces of paper, trying to build something Miles still couldn’t discern.

“It was Saito,” Arthur finally spat out.

“I know,” Miles confessed.  He’d known for some time Dr. Saito had been the one to put Nurse Baker up to walking Malana past Cobb’s room while he would be alert to see her.

“What are you going to do?”

“My best to bring him back.  Same as I do with all of them.”

“With all of us,” Arthur corrected, not unkindly.

Miles smiled a bit, the boy had always been sharp.  “Caught that did you?”

“Leaving the application to the fellowship program where Eames would see it was a warning salvo that’s hard to miss,” Arthur accused, turning to look at Miles.

“He’s better at convincing you than I am, dear boy.”

“Why?” Arthur asked after a beat.

“I imagine it has to do with your intimate relationship,” Miles deflected.

“No, Miles… why?  Why me?”

“Because you can see them too,” he glanced over at Arthur, to see his furrowed brow.

“Eames can see them.”

“It’s different, Eames sees their dreams, the worlds they walk in, you see Jennifer inside Ariadne, Dom inside of Cobb, and the groundbreaking research inside of Saito.  You could help them; Eames, while still immensely helpful, comforts them.”

“He does,” and there was more fondness there than Miles had witnessed between them at work—a testament to Arthur’s professionalism in the face of the formidable temperament of Eames’ affection.

“Something is keeping you in that uniform Arthur, instead of this much more fashionable white coat.  Whatever it is, that’s your business, but don’t let it stop you from doing what you were meant to do.”  Miles looked at the cheap plastic watch he wore in the ward.  “My pro bono hour for the day is up.  Send Eames along for tomorrow’s, would you?”  He clapped Arthur on the shoulder and moved on.

***

4.

Miles watched the money blink their eyes open, coming around out of the Somnacin.  The military one pulled it together first.  Standing and straightening his suit amongst the still sleeping bodies of his subjects.

“Ah, Lieutenant Fischer, everything went smoothly I trust, you’ll be able to report good things to your superiors, sir.”  He clapped Fischer on the back and turned to his other “guest.”  “Lieutenant, allow me to introduce you to Dr. Saito.  Doctor, this is one of our military liaisons.  We insert one every now and again so that they can see how our research progresses.  Dr. Saito’s work correlates to our own, Lieutenant, as I was explaining before you went under.  He’s interested in joining our efforts.”

“Yes,” Fischer said, looking around the room, “I remember.  As for my superiors, I will be making a full report including the situation with the failed subject.”

“Ah, yes.  Subject M.  It was quite the shock when she altered states without our control.  Most distressing that we weren’t able to gather much data from her exit interview.  But she is resting comfortably, I’m told, at St. George’s.”

“What I find most disturbing is that you both don’t know how she realized she was not in a proper reality, or how there is such a strong echo of her below.  It seems to me, doctor, that all your research has done is raise more questions and prove just how uncontrollable this technology is.”

“Pardon me, sir,” Saito spoke just as Miles was going to bullshit the pipsqueak back to his regulation hidey hole.  “I think there is a miraculous amount of questions being answered here about the interpsyche transmission capable during REM sleep. And that the new questions are only a sign of how pervasively important this research is.”

“The military doesn’t care about its importance; the military cares about its applications in military situations.”

“Well, then the military can rest at ease,” Miles put in.  “As you experienced yourself the ability of this technology to allow us into the minds of those who have information we need is staggering.”

“Guantanamo provided the same at a much smaller price.”

“Yes, but how often was intel incorrect, sir?  How could you know that the subject wasn’t telling you what they thought would end the pain as opposed to what they knew to be true.  You see, with this technology there would be no civil rights up roar among the masses.  The truly innocent wouldn’t be damaged the way your techniques would leave them and they could be promptly returned to their loved ones all whilst singing the praises of the US military’s interrogation techniques.  Now, Lieutenant, wouldn’t that be nice for a change?”  Miles saw more than heard Saito snort out of Fischer’s line of sight.

“As I said, doctor, I’ll be making a full report.”

“That is all I ask.  Now, if you have any further questions, my assistant is more than capable of answering them, genius that girl.  And should there be a need she can always reach me.”  Miles waved to the lovely lady in question and she came over to escort the boil on Mile’s ass out.  “Always a pleasure Lieutenant, my best to your superiors.”  The boy may have sputtered a bit but Tasha’s soft smile could soothe many a savage beast.

“Now, doctor, tell me what you thought.”

“What they have created is remarkable.  I have not seen such a breadth or variety of space created by my subjects but they are also not in an induced state for nearly as long as this group.”

“Yes, my assistant likes to call them the Incepticons.  How have you found the subjects fair in the breaks that you give them?”

“We’ve noticed a range of reactions,” Saito said as Miles opened the door to his office, his face in a pleasant, interested mask that he hoped would lead to some of Saito’s private and extensive funding being shuttled his way.

***

5.

He came out of it with a jolt as the mattress beneath him shuddered giggles chimed in his ears.  He groaned, rolling over to see the sleepy smiling eyes of his wife around the legs of their son.

“James, go tell Phillipa I said she could start the eggs.”  James scuttled out and Mal’s eyes grew concerned as they took in his face.  “What’s wrong, bad dream?”

“I…” he said as they rolled into each other, slotting in the way of bodies long unconsciously familiar.  “A strange dream.  Bad… I don’t know.”

“What was it about,” she asked, nuzzling his pectoral, “tell me.”

“It was like… a dream within a dream… within lots of dreams.  And we could pick them and make things and there was running and danger and you were there but you weren’t.  Somehow you were gone and the kids were just babies.  And… it’s so fuzzy already.  And so strange,” he squinted as he gazed at the ceiling, not seeing the plaster but flashes of images from inside his eyelids.

“Just tell me what you remember, darling,” she prompted.

“Arthur…”

“Yes?”

“Arthur was there,” he started.  “And Eames.  They were….”

She huffed a laugh, “In a stable relationship?”

“No.”

“Breaking up every ten minutes like school children?”

It was his turn to laugh.  “No,” he said with a smile.   “It was like when they first met, all snark and ire and eye rolling.”

They were quiet for a time, long enough for the smells of toast and eggs to waft up the stairs—Dom would be forever grateful that the children were old enough to make their own hot breakfast, it had turned Sundays back into weekends.

“It’s such a shame.”

“Hmm,” he inquired.

“Arthur and Eames.  They were so lovely together for a time and then, pfft,” she made some Gaelic gesture that always made Dom feel warm, if a bit foreign.

“Maybe they’ll figure it out one of these days,” he offered, hoping, really, for all their sakes.

“Like we did?”

“You’d wish that on them?  After all they’ve already been through?” 

She was smiling at him, about to respond when he blurted out, “Miles was there,” like the sudden realization it was.

“Oh, darling,” she said, caressing his face and searching his eyes for the ache he’d felt since his mentor had suffered a major stroke, leaving him a brilliant mind trapped in a doll’s body.

“I remember him standing there, that soft, tolerantly mocking look on his face as he challenged me.  It was so familiar, so warm.”  He buried his face in her hair.  “God, I miss him.”

She gave him a moment, squeezing him back tightly.  “Have you spoken to Elyse recently?”

“Not for a while, why?”

“Maybe he’s improved.”

Dom felt his heart plummet just that little bit further; the last time Elyse had answered his call she had railed at him about how there was no hope.  The stroke in his brainstem had left him locked within his own body, held prisoner within his mind, unable to communicate in any fashion.

*

Dom snatched the phone off the hook, certain it would be another of Phillipa’s friends only calling the house because the girl hadn’t answered her cell.  “Hello?”

“Dom.”  It was Arthur.

“Hey, did Mal call you?”

“No, why?”

“Oh… I thought… You were in a dream of mine and I thought maybe she’d teased you about it.”

“No.  We weren’t…. together in this dream, were we?”  He sounded skeptical and reserved, just like Arthur.

“No, you were still pretty hung up on Eames.”

“Oh.  Lovely,” he deadpanned.

“Yeah, the two of you sniped at each other and Miles just looked fondly on.”

“Miles?”

“Yeah, it’s all jumbled now and I can’t recall a lot of it but you and Eames were like kids in a school yard and somewhere in there Miles was mocking me in his head.”

“Ha,” Arthur laughed, “he is really good at that.”

“Was,” Dom corrected.

“Dom….”

“Why’d you call?”

*

“Bugger,” he cursed as the phone shot out of his lathered hand and clunked to the floor outside the stall.  “’Lo,” he barked after finally snatching it up, not looking at the caller ID in his haste.

“Bad time?”  _Arthur._

“Just wet, naked, and slippy.  Can’t think of a better time actually.”

“Right.  Never mind then, I’ll—”

“Arthur, you called for a bloody reason, spit it out so I can wash the shampoo out of my eyes.”

“It was nothing, really.   Just… Dom mentioned you and I thought… I realized… I wondered how you were.”

“Oh,” Eames said and enjoyed the moment of befuddled, stumbling Arthur, he made such rare appearances.  “I’m well.  Lisbet’s pregnant.  Dunley is losing his mind.  Errol can’t be bothered with the estate and Mother is ready to beat him with a Regency tea service.”

“No, Eames... how are you?  Not your family, not your boss, you.  How are you?”

And it was a shot right through Eames’ already clutching heart.  This was why he was so drawn to Arthur, and why it was so hard to make it work.

“I’m doing the same, managing them all, keeping calm, carrying on, the whole lot.”

“Are you happy?”  Arthur’s voice was pleading and unsure, vulnerable, things he tried so hard never to be, things Eames needed and tried not to for Arthur—it always blew up in his face too.

“Happy enough.”  Content, comfortable, capable, bored.

“Is there anyone… special?”

“Well, Dunley is seven different kinds of special even Bedlam wouldn’t take in.”

“Eames.”

“No, love.  Just you.”  And it was out there, the thing they could both tell themselves wasn’t in Arthur’s voice down the line, hadn’t driven him to call, hadn’t gotten Eames to answer seriously rather than evade, to avoid the heart break when Arthur didn’t know what to do with the vulnerability Eames had showed him.

“We’ll never get this right, will we?”

“What is that charming American phrase?  Third time’s the charm?”

Arthur laughed quietly, the smile in his voice when he spoke.  “Thirteenth time’s the charm?”

“Twenty-third.  Sixty-ninth.  One hundred thirty-fifth.”

“One hundred?  God, Eames, there’d be nothing left of either of us.”

“Maybe not.  But—”   Eames stopped, the bubble rising through his heart, clogging it almost painfully.

“But what?” 

“Maybe there’s enough left for round fourteen.”  God, how Eames hoped there was, just enough for both of them to finally let down the walls at the same time.

“Maybe,” Arthur said and then Eames could hear the small, gentle, vulnerable smile on Arthur’s face and Eames felt his heart zing across the room, the ocean, and several dodgy American states.

***

6.

He was standing on the “roof” letting the wind whip his coat around his legs, and pondering.  It wasn’t often he slept and even less often he dreamed but their latest case had taken them around the world in an all out war with… practically everyone, all over dreaming.

 _Dreamsharing_ , Jack snorted.  Rift trash put to marginally dangerous use the world over.  And it was too well disseminated, too widely used to retcon everybody who’d some idea of its existence.  Luckily they’d been able to surmise that no one on the front lines—except them—had any real clue where it had come from.  All those people seemed content to tell themselves that it was indeed just some government creation.  Perhaps a joint venture between the US and British militaries.

Jack just shook his head.  People were so suggestible, so utterly willing to contrive some explanation for what they were seeing and doing that they’d buy anything.  It was the paradox of imagination.  Nobody here seemed to have the imagination to conceive of how to dreamshare—outside of sci-fi and fantasy novels—much less the technical knowhow to create the machine in question but they were all imbued with just enough to imagine their way into some bag where the modern conflict driven government would create something that at its heart was about sharing the gorgeous unrealities of the mind.

“Jack,” Ianto shouted out over the wind and waggled a cup of tea at him. 

Jack looked out over the city once more, wondering if Ianto—given a choice—would share their daily unrealities as well as those he’d kept safe in his own head.

*

They went down the lift together.  In that silence where Ianto was clearly not uncomfortable but Jack was itching for _something_. 

“They had an interesting team,” he caved eventually, thinking of the man—Cobb—who’d they’d been following.

Ianto nodded while saying, “Leader was a bit of a ponce though.”

“Really?  I should have thought he was right up your alley,” Jack said stepping out into the hub once more and watching Owen swan past calling something out to Tosh over his shoulder that, out of context, sounded what Gwen would call ribald. 

“I’ve rather enough poncery in my life, thank you all the same sir,” Ianto dealt out the blow calmly as he moved towards the kitchen leaving Jack alone with his tea.


End file.
